Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/176

150 to hand-to-hand fighting, I shall follow you; when the clash of steel begins, the van belongs of right to me. Is there no way, Friar Bacon, whereby we can drive the men from the Count's mine? Do you not know of some noisome drugs or stifling fumes we could send through tubes to their mine?"

"An excellent notion," said the Friar admiringly. "If we knew just where their tunnel ran, we might thrust a tube of wood or metal downward into their burrow, and smoke them out as if they were rats! We have, so Hugh tells me, a good store of sulphur in the castle stores; and no living thing can breathe its fumes. Come, let us try. They will be at work to-night. Rouse up the cooper or the smiths, and let them make us a tube, and then by means of the bellows from the forge we will pump their mines full of a smoke that will send them scampering!"

The workmen were aroused, and soon knocked together a long wooden tube, strongly bound with iron and furnished with an iron point. This was constructed in the inner court, and then carried into the outer court, just behind the front wall. The party used no torches, and walked silently. Every now and then one of the party would put his ear against the earth to listen for sounds below. At last, about half a hundred feet west-